When time stands still…

 

   

Posting a tenuous Couchsurfing request to ‘Voluntario Ekachakra,’ a small yoga retreat near the little-known town of Catemu, two days before leaving Pucon, was designed to find a place where we could enjoy a little headspace and learn more about yoga.  What we found instead was perhaps the most profound, beautiful and enlightening experience of our travels. Greeted and hosted by Maharaj, this commune is a temple of Hare Krishna devotees, who accommodate travellers in their splendid cabins and, with an immense and humbling amount of love, create a wonderfully diverse experience of learning and sharing during their stay.

Their ethos is incredibly simple: live free of alcohol, drugs, meat and caffeine; and to stimulate the mind and spirit through the teachings of ‘The Bhagavat-Gita’ an ancient Hindu text that details a converstion between a warrior on a battlefield and Krishna (God).  Maybe at this point I should insert the disclaimer:  we were not welcomed here to be converted; at no point have we been asked to join any worship, or insisted upon to follow teachings – our experience of Hare Krishnas has been moving, humbling and loving.  We feel incredibly lucky to have been given this amount of care and love from complete strangers.

This philosophy has had the most tremendously positive impact upon us both.  Yoga each day has resulted in healthy weight-loss, and an abundance of strength and fitness; the vegetarian diet complements this perfectly, each meal provides roughly 6 different foods, including curries, dhals, pakoras, halva, soups, rices, bhajees, granola, fresh fruits from the abundant peach, apricot, lemon, apple and grapefruit trees and also an array of homemade breads – heavenly, and would turn even the most ardent meat eater into a fully-functional veggie.  Each day we have been met by the occupants to help them with a variety of fun activities including; papier-mache crafts, gardening, baking, knitting, flower-sowing, natural construction, making natural toothpaste (it works, trust us) and even learning mud therapy!  They have a deep, deep love of music, as their faith is centred around musical pray and chants to Lord Krishna: I found myself playing at a fiesta with two other Indian music specialists to the rest of the congregation – an intense and joyful experience, both musically fulfilling and cerebrally stimulating

Perhaps the most apparent aspect of life here is the total lack of stress.  People here move at snail’s pace, never concerned about if or when things get done; they are confident that all things will come to pass and so emit a tranquillity, which, if we could bottle, would make us both very rich indeed.  The irony is that it is all free.  They have chosen a lifestyle and belief-system that bestows upon them inner peace and harmony. They have chosen to leave television, junk food, meat, drugs, alcohol and the material, disposable world far, far behind.  In England, a lot of this is dismissed as new-age hippie dogma, but we have found ourselves asking ‘ who are the mugs?’ Life here has been wonderful.  Our reserves of latent stress from the modern world have been now thoroughly deprogrammed, and an appreciation of simplicity now enlightened.

Gut-wrenchingly and after two fabulous weeks, we leave here on Wednesday for La Serena but we must thank all for this most profound experience, whether it is bathing in the river which runs adjacent to the gardens, with the beautiful boughs of walnut trees poised and hanging their fronds on the banks, or enjoying a delicious aromatica, under the welcome shade of the peach trees, we shall never forget and promise to stay friends with Eka Chakra forevermore.  Love, peace and Harebol.